The number of diabetic people in Chandigarh will twofold in the next five years if no measures are taken, suggest an ongoing study. The study says with 13.6 per cent of its populace suffering from the disease, the city, in percentage terms, has the maximum occurrence of diabetes among India’s 15 states.
The study also suggests that 14.6 per cent of the city’s people have been diagnosed as pre-diabetic. They carry the risk of becoming diabetics in near future. The study was being conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research and INdia DIABetes. It was published in the peer-reviewed international journal, The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, recently.
The number of diabetics and pre-diabetics cases is higher than the cases in 2010. The diabetic incidence was 11.1 per cent while the pre-diabetes figure was 13.2 per cent then.
“Pre-diabetes means that you have a higher-than-normal blood sugar level and that is not high enough to be diagnosed with diabetes. It is reversible but if you do not take preventive measures, the pre-diabetes can become diabetes within 5-7 years,” said head, endocrinology department, PGIMER, Dr Anil Bhansali.
Notably, more participants in the study from the city were youths. “In Chandigarh, a large number of youths are affected by diabetes because they are not very active, physically speaking. We had conducted a study in 2010, which showed that two/third of youth were physically inactive,” he said.
